You can watch several episodes of the TV Land talk show Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg right at the TV Land web site (full episodes from the second season and highlights of the first). Steinberg has interviewed everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Bob Newhart, but the show that I'd like to talk about is the one where he interviews Daily Show host Jon Stewart. It's actually one of the best interviews with Stewart I've ever seen.

The interview is great because it's not really formal, it's more like "two funny Jewish guys sitting around talking." Steinberg is obviously a showbiz veteran, and Stewart, even though he's 20 years younger, is a veteran too, and it's great to see them banter back and forth about celebrities, parenting, and other topics. They're both funny as hell. Stewart also takes questions from the audience.

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I watched this when it was on, and recorded it to watch again with my sister when she came to visit (she's a huge Jon Stewart fan, also). I, too, thought this was one of the best Jon Stewart as well as one of the best comedian interviews I'd ever seen. Stewart is just so incredibly smart about life, and the art of comedy, and the process of comedy--though not a very snappy dresser--that I got even more out of the second viewing than I had from the first. I was fascinated by his discussion of why you "don't fall in love with the audience," and it gave great insight into the stand he takes both with his studio audience on the Daily Show as well as swipes he's taken on the show at figures that I'd thought he would have backed off of. He truly cares only about the comedy, about his comedy, and isn't grinding any political axe. I gotta respect that.

One of the best things about that interview is how unpolitical Steinberg's questions are...he actually seems to accept Jon's usual "I'm just a comedian" identification and function on it, instead of always pushing him to acknowledge a political influence/agenda he doesn't feel he has. So many interviews I've seen or read with Jon seem to have that agenda, to get him to admit that he's out to save the world or something.